Movie Reviews

'Wonder Wheel': Round and Round It Goes
Woody Allen flummoxes us. I think it was Henry Miller who asked to be judged by his literary work and not his personal life. "Fat chance" said some; "OK" said others; and "Who's Henry Miller?" was doubtlessly the response by most.
While Allen makes no such plea, aloud or tacitly, the arrival of 0 Comments

'The Disaster Artist': No Soap, Radio
Director James Franco's "The Disaster Artist" reminded me of a non-joke that popularly circulated when I was a kid. It goes like this: Two elephants are in a bathtub and, when one says to the other, "Pass the soap," the other elephant informs, "No soap, radio."
You tell it and then you laugh, 0 Comments

'Justice League': Oh Superman, Where Art Thou?
Prior to becoming one special effects-crammed battle scene after the next, director Zack Snyder's "Justice League" spends an inordinate amount of time detailing the difficulties of putting together the folks necessary to saving the world. Mind you, I'm not talking about the 20 or 30 influential U.S. senators and congresspeople 0 Comments

'LBJ': Offers Hope From the Past
Viewers uninterested in politics and American history probably won't enjoy the insight and philosophical ruminations ventured by director Rob Reiner in his savvy biopic, "LBJ." Detailing the momentous ebb and flow of the times just before and after the ascension of Lyndon Baines Johnson to the presidency of the United States in 0 Comments

'Suburbicon': Where Seldom Is Heard a Tolerant Word
My rich sister Ann has regularly informed that "It's always about the money, especially if they say it's not about the money." Whether she influenced the deservedly famous Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan, or they figured out the maxim themselves, they have made a successful film career of exploring and dramatizing 0 Comments

'Victoria and Abdul': The Queen and I
Remember the first time you heard someone opine that "The rich get richer and the poor get more children?" You looked up from your playpen and thought, "Gee, that's not a very good starting point. Guess I'll have to grow up to be either rich or a social reformer, whatever that is?"
Thus, faced with 0 Comments

'Professor Marston and the Wonder Women': La Différence to the Rescue
I was a terrible grammar school student. Bored out of my mind, I survived the droning lessons by drawing cars and baseball stadiums. It also didn't help that I was rather sleepy in class, the result of loving, liberal parents who allowed me to watch old movies on TV way past a growing boy's acceptable bedtime. The one exception to this 0 Comments

'Blade Runner 2049': Virtual Truth & Justice
I'm not exactly sure what I saw, but I kind of think it was sort of OK, maybe. It's quite a tussle trying to follow the unnecessarily convoluted story in Denis Villeneuve's "Blade Runner 2049." The miasmic visuals of the scorched Earth scenario frustratingly obscure the gist of the thing. Yet, when the complicating fog 0 Comments

'Battle of the Sexes': We've Come a Long Way, Baby
Watching Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris's "Battle of the Sexes," about the events leading up to the famous gender war/tennis match on Sept. 20, 1973, between woman's champion Billie Jean King and former great Bobby Riggs, I tried to remember what I thought at the time. I like to think I applauded the dispelling of 0 Comments